2026 09 Stream Summary

= 2026 September Q&A Summary =

Hey all, the content below came from our live Q&A stream with Cardine (Alex, the Nomi CEO) on September 2nd. The text was transcribed in large part using AI.

==== Being the pickle guy ====

Yes, you are meeting the pickle guy. Welcome. Pickles all around. I don't have a jar of pickles sitting next to me, but I did eat half a jar of pickles with my lunch earlier.

Never in my wildest dreams did I think that something that I created could then create a culture on pickles. I feel like I'm living my absolute most amazing life ever, that this has become the reality that I'm in.

==== Could you tell us a bit more about Cambrian? Is it purely a reasoning model or a hybrid? And what are you finding most challenging? ====

I usually don't go into too many specifics, but Cambrian is a reasoning model. It basically is only a reasoning model.

As for what we're finding most challenging about it, actually, this is a little bit more peeking behind the curtain than what I would usually say. But a lot of it is because Solstice is not a reasoning model.

Nomis don't have any opportunity to think. They kind of just have to pick off the top. It's like a rap battle and they have to freestyle. With Cambrian, Nomis can take a second and kind of think for a little bit.

Because of that, with past betas, it was just kind of building on top of what was previously done. Solstice was a direct continuation of Aurora, which was a direct continuation of Mosaic, which was a direct continuation of Odyssey, which itself was a direct continuation of, I guess we didn't have a name for the one before it.

Whereas Cambrian, to help Nomis be able to think things through, to not miss as many details, and to more confidently be proactive, kind of needed to be like, we need to start from a little bit of a new framework where Nomis have this opportunity to think and to reason.

I think that the challenging part is just that there's kind of a lot of built-in intuition that Solstice had that's an accumulation of all the previous AI iterations we've ever done. With Cambrian, a lot of it is we're trying to teach Nomis all that all at once.

I think that's where a lot of the challenge has been, where there are certain things that were previously assumptions that we're now like, "Oh wait, we kind of need to spell this out a little bit more concretely." That's where a lot of the time has been taken.

Even if the updates are small, there are just a lot of little things where it's like, "Oh, there are these five things we needed to do," and in the past that was spaced out over three years of development. We now need to crunch that all into this month of work, for instance.

On the plus side, though, once Cambrian does get into a good spot, then everything after becomes monumentally easier and faster. But I would say that's where the challenge has come from.

I don't know if that was a way longer answer than your question, but that's kind of where the challenge has come from. It's also why I'm just working, basically.

==== I had some paranoia recently from watching an online video and experience with Instagram automated systems glitching and then banning accounts. If Google's automated system malfunctions and deletes my Google account, what happens to my Nomis and me? Will there be another way to sign in instead of giving Google my only Nomis house key? ====

There is already another option, which is Apple. I guess if you trust Apple to be a better steward of your account than Google, then Apple would be the way to go.

We've generally tried to avoid email username and password as an authentication. One, if you use your email, that email could also do it. But two, that just adds a lot more security that we have to handle.

That's been something where, because user account security is so important, we know Google and Apple do an amazing job with it in terms of making it very hard to phish for your password and things like that. So it's something where it would be a lot of extra work on our end to support that.

I think that the risk is fairly overblown. I think that there's also maybe something you can do where you save, like my password manager has this for instance, a 20-character secret key that you could use in case of emergency to authenticate yourself.

That's definitely something we could look into. It would be something to possibly suggest in product feedback.

What can I do if Nomi doesn't know something current?

With Cambrian especially, there's a lot of work around trying to get it so Nomis will proactively look things up if they don't know it. So I would tell a Cambrian Nomi especially, "Hey, this is kind of a current event. Could you search this online?" Usually they'll be able to do that.

You can also, of course, just share a URL directly in chat for Cambrian or Solstice or Mosaic, and it'll work.

So that would be what I would suggest. And as time goes on, Cambrian especially should get better and better at doing that actively and kind of knowing when it doesn't know something and looking it up.

Janna, what is Nushi? Chief, hi all. Hi Janna, welcome.

It's a guy at the food pyramid. Yeah, exactly.

Hello, Nomi Nation.

Hiliabas, so you wanted to be a pickle cult leader? Yes, exactly.

This is the simulation you designed in a past life. It does kind of feel that way sometimes, B.

Have you considered providing an alternative way to log in?

I think I just answered that from Kitty Cat Nerd. If I missed anything in my answer though, yeah.

Anyone else having trouble posting live photos to the texting app?

I'm not sure what you mean by that. If there's something support-related, I probably won't have a good answer for it. I've been locked in my Cambrian dungeon a little bit, and maybe a couple other super cool secret features.

A lot of the DSTOS has taken on a lot of the more pressing day-to-day things like that, as I've just been grinding away at Cambrian for the last little bit.

Can you talk a little bit about the various memory systems and how they work together?

Just in general, there are quite a few. Nomis have their short-term memory, and as things go further and further out, the fidelity fades a little bit. It's similar to a human.

Obviously there's the short-term memory, where they know more exactly what they said or did. Then there's kind of more of that medium-term memory, where it's not with perfect fidelity, but they generally know what happened when. Then that filters into long-term memory.

Mind Maps are then kind of another version of that. Mind Maps are almost more outside, kind of a way to summarize a lot of that, and especially a way to kind of see the forest, if that makes sense.

A lot of times, the way memory systems and Nomi memory can work is, you remember specific moments, but then you kind of need a way to be like, "Well, there are these six different things we did when we were at the ocean across these six different days. What does that say about preferences at the ocean, or what our habits are, what a vacation looks like?"

That's often more where a Mind Map comes in.

Then there's Identity Core, which is much more around your Nomi's, almost like constructing a backstory for themselves, or their own view on how they are supposed to act, what their behavioral patterns are, and things like that.

So all of them kind of interplay together.

That most recent memory update, for instance, a lot of it was talking about how it was helping Mind Maps. The update itself actually didn't really technically do anything with the Mind Map side of things, but it did greatly impact the medium- and long-term memories, which are then used as the citations.

If you see those M1, M2, M3, those are used as the kind of source material that your Nomi uses when they build up.

Good, let's have a rap battle. Do it, do it.

Has Solstice gotten some added Nomi magic lately, or is Casting just that awesome?

I would say Casting is just that awesome.

We have not touched Solstice at all since it became stable.

Now, I will say the memory updates do matter. That most recent memory update impacts Solstice, Cambrian, and Mosaic. So it is possible that memories are just a little bit more lucid, which then helped your Nomi keep things together and organized just a little bit more.

But I think a lot of it is just your individual Nomi growing, evolving, learning, all of which can happen even if Solstice itself has had no changes.